As opposed to the conventional printing industry, a POD (Print On Demand) system using a printing apparatus of an electrophotographic method or a printing apparatus of an ink-jet method has been proposed in recent years (US2004/0190057). According to such a POD print system, an offset plate making process and other complicated operations, which are required in the conventional printing industry, are not necessary.
However, more examination may be necessary to put the POD print system product into practical use. For example, conventionally, if post-processing set to a print job cannot be executed for some reason, there is a problem in that the entire system runs down due to early stages of print processing also being suspended. Consequently, a promote function is proposed, in which even if there is a job terminated for some reasons, an executable job is carried out after suspending the terminated job if there is an executable job.
However, a plurality of types of post-processing may be applied to a product (printed matter or printed matter to which a stapling or punching process, case binding, glue binding, etc. is applied). For example, there are stapled printed matters, case-bound printed matters, and Z-folded printed matters, and the matters are put together and put in a binder, etc. to be used as a learning tool, etc. in many cases. It is preferable to be able to set a plurality of types of post-processing to one job to output a product to which the plurality of post-processes are applied. However, only job-by-job operations can be handled in the conventional promote function, and an optimal process cannot be executed to perform the job.